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Google Urged the US To Limit Protection for Activist Workers (bloomberg.com)
Google, whose employees have captured international attention in recent months through high-profile protests of workplace policies, has been quietly urging the U.S. government to narrow legal protection for workers organizing online. From a report: During the Obama administration, the National Labor Relations Board broadened employees' rights to use their workplace email system to organize around issues on the job. In a 2014 case, Purple Communications, the agency restricted companies from punishing employees for using their workplace email systems for activities like circulating petitions or fomenting walkouts, as well as trying to form a union. In filings in May 2017 and November 2018, obtained via Freedom of Information Act request, Alphabet's Google urged the National Labor Relations Board to undo that precedent.
Citing dissents authored by Republican appointees, Google's attorneys wrote that the 2014 standard "should be overruled" and a George W. Bush-era precedent -- allowing companies to ban organizing on their employee email systems -- should be reinstated. In an emailed statement, a Google spokeswoman said, "We're not lobbying for changes to any rules." Rather, she said, Google's claim that the Obama-era protections should be overturned was "a legal defense that we included as one of many possible defenses" against meritless claims at the NLRB.
Citing dissents authored by Republican appointees, Google's attorneys wrote that the 2014 standard "should be overruled" and a George W. Bush-era precedent -- allowing companies to ban organizing on their employee email systems -- should be reinstated. In an emailed statement, a Google spokeswoman said, "We're not lobbying for changes to any rules." Rather, she said, Google's claim that the Obama-era protections should be overturned was "a legal defense that we included as one of many possible defenses" against meritless claims at the NLRB.
Whoda thunk a bunch of rich white 1%ers who push "progressive" ideals is also all about stifling any dissent?
With the news of Chrome disabling ad-blocking extensions, and now then, I guess we can put Google squarely in the "evil" category.
The thing is, what other options are there? There's Apple, which for the moment is a bit better but they have some evil of their own, and there's no guarantee they won't go full evil like Google has in the future.
Microsoft? HA, I kill me.
Should I just hunker down and stop using the Internet? I don't know anymore.
"We're not lobbying for changes to any rules." Rather, she said, Google's claim that the Obama-era protections should be overturned was "a legal defense that we included as one of many possible defenses"
Thems weasel words Google.
This is one reason why. Among many.
Corporatism != Free Market
I support a company's right to be able to regulate the internal use of their software and tools that they provide and pay for. Just because a certain message might be (at the moment) a popular one doesn't mean it gets more privileges or gets to assume the use of someone's resources without question.
Freedom of speech, and US regulations about labor organization communications, don't imply the right to disseminate messages in any way without regard to the rights of others or in any channel you may encounter. People are free to speak to each other, and they're free to publish documents, papers, blog posts, news articles using their resources.
Google is right to do this, and they should learn to act even more like a professional business. They already brewed themselves a shitstorm by inviting their employees to discuss and debate controversial political topics on internal forums as if it's some kind of college campus. It's coming back to bite them in the ass.
Did I hit the wrong site? /. gets more like /b/ every day.
Sad.
On topic:
Want to organize? Go for it.
Using the company email system to foment strikes or walk outs? You should be fired on the spot.
I want insurance and healthcare completely disconnected from employment. I don't get my homeowners or car insurance via my employer and neither should health insurance.
I hate fat people.
If you are using a resource someone else owns and pays for (such as corporate email) then on principle they should be allowed to set the limits for the use of that resource. Encrypted email services are cheap and free, and workers are free to organize their gripes outside of those channels.
but I do NOT want the overreaching, poorly managed Federal Govt in charge of it.
you are pathetic and insincere.
SOMEONE is in control. you dislike the government. fine, I mostly agree with you there, but who else should control this? currently its the insurance companies and they are allowed mostly free control of this industry. they are entirely profit driven. the government is not; so that's a plus in the gov's favor. both have competancy issues, so that's a moot point for both.
does our current system work? not really. therefore, we have only 1 choice: CHANGE IT and make it less of an industry and more of a SERVICE to mankind.
other countries do this. almost all do, in fact. the US is a 3rd world hellhole when it comes to this issue.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I agree whole heartedly on this one.
I also think that they should open it up for medical insurance sales across state lines.
Competition there might help things a good bit.
I'd also like to see the govt. PROMOTE and make it easier to set up individual HSA's (Health Savings Accounts) that people can use to save pre-tax for their routine medical needs....or to even pay for individual insurance, etc. Rather than try to inhibit this as the Obama regime did, it should be opened up and promoted to make it easier for people to do.
HSA's, unlike FSA's are not use it or lose it either, you can put these accounts together to grow over time and even earn interest on them, etc.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I have to admit, back when "Obamacare" was all the rage, I stood there baffled and befuddled that anyone could oppose universal healthcare. You see, over here in Europe, you can do a lot to us. You can take away our guns, we don't really care about them that much, you can take away our holidays, you can make us work overtime for no pay, there's very little that you can't do to us, just as a few right-leaning governments recently proved.
But talking about taking away universal healthcare would probably lead to worse riots than you'd see in the US if someone tried to repeal the 2nd.
Just the idea that I somehow can't afford an operation or even going to a doctor, or that I can't afford some medicine that I need is absolutely alien to us. We also don't worry about which hospital an ambulance takes us to, the closest one is the correct one. The very idea of not being able to afford medical care is kinda ridiculous to us.
Why anyone would not want that is really hard to understand over here.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
See, that false dichotomy is why there cannot be any compromise. Maybe the conservatives see: a horde of desperate people - impoverished, oppressed, starving, fleeing lives of violence and hoping to start a new life by crossing illegally into a foreign land with no prospects other than handouts or illegal labor to get them out of poverty. And by letting them in with no consequences, we encourage more refugees to do the same. Are some of the migrants criminals, murderers, and rapists? Most definitely, but that's a poor excuse to build the wall.
One way or another, there needs to be an orderly control of the border. I don't know that a wall is effective, but the symbolism of a barrier might be an effective deterrent.
I don't know how someone can be a "monster" by turning away people to leave them to die when a huge percentage of the world's population is in the same or worse circumstances and there is no way we can save them all. Someone needs to turn some people away. Why should people who are lucky enough to have easy land access be given priority by virtue of not having a restriction on entry? And the bigger question is, are we making it worse by having desperate people put their lives on the line trying to get here by any means necessary without regard for laws or order?
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
The man has been destroying Google since he became CEO. Now, he wants to stop workers from unionizing.
Look, if they want to limit email, I am good with it. That is THEIR system. But once you are actively trying to block any legal union attempts, well, that is BS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I've got 2 contacts in there and I continue to hear stories about these people effectively hijacking the workplace, shaming others into joining their protests, putting up banners all over the campuses and so on.
Nothing wrong with equality but now you basically have the gestapo running around making up rules and trying to enforce them, people who seem to think their entire job is to stop people working productively and to just push politics.
Google is no longer producing exceptional tech, or at least, less of it. There's a lot more misses now, there's a lot of odd decisions, I feel like management are stuck for getting things done, dealing with these people and moving in the right direction.
I visited a campus a few months ago and it was something /straight/ out of a TV show / movie or 1990s high school drama, I saw a wide variety of people walking around chatting and little productivity. I'd say I saw a 60/40 ratio of women to men, most people relatively young and attractive.
Out of the 3 or 400 people I saw, I'd say, I saw about 5 guys, at most who were your traditional looking neckbeard type programmer dudes (Let's be honest, a lot of us don't present great) - they were on their own and just generally looked pretty out of place there if anything. The only thing I saw less of, was people over the age of about 35. I've never felt so old in my life. It felt like clique club.
But I digress, I've posted this before and had responses here before, from others inside, confirming that there's a good portion of the workforce, simply not doing /real work/. It's a place of business, to develop products and software and a /lot/ of staff are not only not doing that, they're actively making it more difficult for the business to do so.
I miss the days where I thought Google was the most amazing company of all time, near a decade ago. Endlessly producing amazing things, better than others, for 'free'. Now they shut things at a moments notice and 'fix' existing products with UI overhauls that make them worse (this month? Google maps)